


I Would Not Be Thy Executioner

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: The Duchess of Malfi - Webster
Genre: F/M, Incestuous Pining, Marriage, Murder Fantasies, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Ferdinand/Duchess, Pre-Canon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: On the night of her wedding, Ferdinand contemplates the nature of his love for his sister.
Relationships: Ferdinand/Duchess (The Duchess of Malfi)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	I Would Not Be Thy Executioner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



Ferdinand spends the evening stewing. The night air’s hot and dry, no breeze blowing in from the sea to soothe his heaving mind, and the full, pregnant roundness of the moon hangs in the sky like an omen. It should bring him calm, but the pale and waxy gleam only disquiets him. Most nights he barely notices the moon, but tonight it grins down at him like a skull. 

He looks up at it, and it becomes his sister’s face. 

There’s feasting and joy in the palace tonight, but Ferdinand can’t bear to be around the revelry any longer. Not with her face haunting him, so drawn and young and so like his. She’s drowning in her fine gown, and he would rescue her, if only he was not-- 

“Thought I might find you out here.” 

Ferdinand jumps, jostled out of his thoughts by an unexpected burst of fear, but it’s only his brother, looking particularly smug and priestly this evening. 

“I could not endure the air in the hall. It was fouled.” 

“Ah.” It’s a lazy excuse, and Ferdinand’s brother knows it. 

He smirks. Ferdinand tries not to find it infuriating, but it is difficult. 

“How fares our lady sister?” he asks instead, hoping to drive his brother to speech or at least to do something besides sneer. 

“Much as you left her. Enjoying the company of the Duke her husband.”   
Ferdinand shrugs. He doesn’t want to remember the shine of her hair in the chapel, the luster of the pearls they’d draped her in, her eyes as bright as jewels, anxiously desiring the future. His stomach churns and he looks out at the moon once more. It’s lost its resemblance to his sister’s face, and now just shines in one great brilliance of light. 

“How long until we’re both married off?” Ferdinand asks, trying to change the subject. 

“ _I_ won’t be married.” 

Ferdinand presses forehead to palm, furious with himself for his distraction. 

“No, no, of course you won’t. You’ll probably be Pope by the time you’re twenty-five.” He tosses the words off lightly, thoughtlessly, but his brother does not laugh. 

“Cardinal, perhaps. Pope at fifty.” His brother laughs dryly, and Ferdinand wishes he could shove him, the way he had when they were very small. “You’ll marry, though. Someone pretty and filled with guile, with a mean little dagger up her sleeve. She’ll be perfect for you.” 

But Ferdinand doesn’t want some perfect girl filled with guile and cleverness. He wants-- well, best to think of her as the Duchess of Malfi, and not as everything else she is. Pure and draped in pearls, smiling like the moon. She ought to be his, for who can understand him better than a sister? Who would make her happier- Ferdinand or the elderly and distant Duke of Malfi? He thinks of her pale and trembling. 

“Brothers?” 

It’s her, radiant in the moonlight, and Ferdinand does not know how she has escaped unchaperoned from the hall and from her husband. 

“How’d you get out here?” he asks. “I thought the Duke would miss his Duchess.” 

She smiles, radiant in the bright moonlight, and Ferdinand is shattered by the feelings rushing through him, the powerful, ravenous hunger he feels when he sees the pale expanse of her neck extending from her gown, the curve of her chin and her breasts. He wants and he wants and he wants. 

“Told him that our dear and pious brother awaited me. A priest is as good a chaperone as any. A priestly brother doubly so. And truth be told, I could not endure the noise any longer.” 

She tucks a stray curl behind an ear delicate as a seashell, and Ferdinand feels himself flush as her hands move. 

“So have you come to say farewell?” he asks. “Before you leave us forever to go off with the Duke?” 

_I could love you more than that goatish old duke ever could. Certainly, I wouldn’t make you a duchess, but I could make you happy. And I’d never soil you. I’d keep you mine and pure forever, snapping like an angry wolf at anyone who tried to touch you._

She clasps Ferdinand’s hands between her own, smiling a little sadly, but mostly full of joy. 

“I’m still your sister,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve a husband now. Aren’t you happy for me?” 

He wants to say that he is full of joy, but his mouth is full of bile instead. Ferdinand swallows down his derision, tries to arrange his face into an attractive smile, but he finds it too far beyond him. 

“Mind you keep yourself well,” he says instead, and his sister laughs. 

“Of course I will,” she says. “I’m so happy!” 

She glows in the moonlight, and is that a hint of sadness Ferdinand can see? He finds himself hoping that it is. Because when she is miserable and mourning, he will be there for her. He will love her and protect her. No one else could possibly do the same. He’ll kill for his sister, because isn’t that what love means, in the end? You kill for the person you love, because otherwise, one’s heart grows too full, too tense with desirous passion. And if you cannot kill for your love, you kill your love instead. 

The Duchess of Malfi, who will always be Ferdinand’s sister first and foremost, smiles like a benediction. For a moment, in the moonlight, her eyes gleam weapon-like, blades into Ferdinand’s very soul. He hopes that she can see his passion. He knows that she never will, even if he would hope that she might turn him away were she to discover it. But instead of pressing her against the railings in full view of their brother, Ferdinand smiles a crooked sort of smile. 

“And I for you, sweet sister,” he says, waiting for an embrace that will never come, and saying the word that sunders them apart. 

He’ll kill for her someday. Or he’ll kill her. But the future, Janus-faced, stands before them, and for now, all Ferdinand can do is watch his most beloved sister walk away.

**Author's Note:**

> Title pulled from _As You Like It_ , because what better source is there for titles for revenge tragedy incest fic than a pastoral comedy?


End file.
